White Out
by Sapphire2
Summary: What would Angel's Shanshu really be like?


Usual disclaimer, I don't own any of these characters, you know the drill

Usual disclaimer, I don't own any of these characters, you know the drill.

I was cold. So cold that it was creeping through to my bones and further – creeping into my soul. Around me the ice hung from what seemed to be walls, thick, unrelenting ice. The sky was black but I could see everything as clear as crystal. The floor was incredibly slippy and I struggled to maintain a foothold on it despite the solid grips on my boots. My enclosure was huge and seemed to stretch for miles, and was completely devoid of life except for my own. I had my duster tightly wrapped around me, but it was not working to its usual standard. I doubt if anything could have stood up to the conditions there. To make it worse I had not eaten in a day or so. Blood, pig's blood, had lost its pathetic appeal. The demon inside of me craved human blood, sweet, rich, warm human blood. But it would not get it. I hoped it would never get it. The last time I gave in to the craving I had hurt so many around me, hurt my one true soul mate. That would not happen again. Id dust myself first. Around me I could see little except white ice and white snow, and a frozen river of white water. I longed for some colour, something to point me in the right direction. I didn't know why I was there, or where I was supposed to go. I tried to listen but could hear nothing over the bitter wailing wind, I tried to catch a scent, something, anything, but I could detect nothing over the ice. It occurred to me that this place was designed so that my senses were useless, so that I would be disorientated. Why? I quelled the demon's anger that threatened any sort of inner calm I was trying to maintain. I watched the horizon for any sort of sign the creators wished to send me, all the time trying to conserve precious heat in my lifeless body. The cold began to hurt my extremities, my arms and hands were growing numb and my legs were beginning to buckle under me. Could a vampire perish from turning into a block of ice? As interesting as the question seemed I did not particularly wish to find out. Still, I waited. And waited. I even began to jump and stamp about to keep myself warm, a humiliating escapade for me if anyone saw it. I still wondered why I was here, and how I had ended up here. It seemed to me as surreal as a dream, one from which you hopefully wake up. I looked around again and began to wonder if I should begin to walk onwards and see what I could find. It would keep me warm at the very least. I toyed with this idea for a while. If I moved away I might miss something, if I stayed I might not find something. But I had stayed for what seemed like hours and nothing had happened. I took a few tentative steps, both to wake my feet up and to signal to my captors that I was now going to move, and if they wanted to send me anything now was the time. Nothing. No colour, no sound, no new scents for me to follow. So I continued to walk, slowly at first, through the bitter emptiness of my surroundings.

I walked for miles, the snarling cold unrelenting against my meagrely protected skin. My hands were blue now, a symbol of the many hours I had spent wandering in a torturing wasteland. I was sure that my lips were turning the same colour as the cold bit at my face with a ferocity Angelus probably could not match. The wind was against me, always attempting to slow my already laborious journey. I knew I could not keep this up for ever. Even a vampire has to rest sometime. But I was afraid to rest. Afraid that when I did my body would give in to the cold and I would be stranded, unable to move, unable to fight, unable to scream. I had nothing but myself in this place, and if I lost that I would not survive. I had no choice but to continue. I wondered why I had begun to walk in the first place.

The wind slowly decreased in its power as I journeyed onwards, and around me I noticed there was a thinner coating of ice upon the components of my surroundings. I had walked for miles. I allowed myself to hope that I was nearing my journey's end and that I would be able to rest soon. How long had it been? The familiar weight of my watch had been removed from my wrist. It was a comfort I felt a pang for, a comfort that reminded me that this desolation was not my usual habitation. I continued to walk, or stumble along, the relief of the wind's slow destruction having not yet reached the innermost sanctum of my bones. Cold was an understatement. I mulled over the loss of my watch as I saw the meandering white river I had first noticed many hours before begin to liquidise as I moved along its banks. It was a few degrees warmer here, perhaps above freezing. I continued, spurred on by this revelation. I wanted warmth, no, needed warmth. Control of my limbs was slipping away from me and it was becoming increasingly difficult to walk with any intended direction. But as I did and the further I went the more of the ice melted around me. I could finally feel the slight rise in temperature and welcomed it with all my soul. Finally I saw with absolute reverence the first green blades of grass poking through the blanket of ice under my feet. My enclosure had soil. This concept was strange and yet I gave it only fleeting thought as I broke into a run towards where I deemed there would be warmth. I summoned what was left of my strength and even allowed Angelus to break through a few barriers to help me. My game face was instantly upon me but I did not care. My one thought was of warmth. Nothing seemed to plague me as I ran headlong for my goal. Around me the ice melted as I moved to reveal a garden-like area in which I ran. I saw trees, grass, night-blooming jasmine similar to the plant I had in my old mansion, roses I had given to Darla growing on sturdy bushes, Drusilla's favourite daisies from her human life, and Buffy's favourite tulips. What was they're significance? I kept on running, afraid I would digress and leave my ultimate goal. I could feel the warmth now; the cold in me was slowly being dissipated. But this warmth could never reach my heart. It was as dead as ever, and it would remain that way. 

I stopped running as I reached a pair of golden gates that towered above me and stood out sharply against the blackness of the sky. I was dumbfounded; they had appeared from nowhere and conjured up in me images of mortal beliefs in heaven. I loosened my duster around me, the warmth I now felt was slightly overpowering. Lightening struck and thunder rumbled across the sky as I endeavoured to push the gates open. Was I welcome behind them? I stepped through them slowly and carefully, afraid of what I might find. Angelus mocked both my fear and me, but I replaced the broken barriers between he and I inside of myself. My game face was no longer visible. In front of me lay a creamy path set against a golden floor, and I began to follow it. I half expected something to stop me, tell me that I wasn't worthy to continue, that I had not paid for my crimes against humanity sufficiently. But nothing did, no one came, and I continued my walk. I reached a white building etched with blue lightening-like lines and a gaping wide doorway. Its doors had been flung open purposely. I wondered if I could walk through them. I had not been invited, and the building could have been inhabited. I tried anyway, and to my surprise no invisible barrier arose against me. I stood in a clinically white room which reminded me of Buffy's fear of hospitals. It was empty except for a doorway at the other end of the room which I could barely make out against the sea of white. The doors behind me slammed shut and I jumped involuntarily. Not that I hadn't expected it. Doors always seem to slam behind me, wherever I go. In front of me the door opened and a figure stepped through. It was female by the curves of her silver dress, her black curled hair was piled loosely on her head and secured by what looked like a golden arrow. Her skin was reminiscent of an English rose and her fingernails were painted gold. There was a mark on her cheek, a symbol that I did not recognise. It too was gold. She smiled reassuringly at me. I opened my mouth to speak but she beat me to it. "You want to know why you are here, who I am, and how you got here. These things do not matter. All that matters is my gift to you. My reward. You have served your time in purgatory Angel, you have more than redeemed yourself." I stared at her, not wishing to hope lest I be beaten back again. She spoke again to me, reading my thoughts as she walked to me. "This is your Shanshu, Angel, that is all you are here to receive." She was standing close to me now, I strained to make out her heartbeat but I could not. She smiled, and laid her hand upon my chest. I felt a wave of pain wash over me, unbearable pain that seemed to cut something out of me, removing a part of me. Suddenly I could no longer hear Angelus' protests, could no longer feel his evil. I cried out, scared at losing the familiarity of him, afraid that without him my dead body could no longer walk the earth. Another wave of pain focused on my chest and I screamed at the top of my lungs. It tore through my heart and left it…beating. I fell to the floor as I lost what was left of my vampiric essence. I felt weak suddenly, unable to stand. The figure knelt down beside of me and stroked my hair, then bent to kiss my forehead. "Go. Go back to what you need. Go back to her."

I awoke on the floor of my room with Wesley and Cordelia staring panicked over me. I was wrapped in a purple blanket that I knew had been on my bed. "Thank God your awake. I thought you were dead, you know, really dead, not undead." Cordelia's relieved face stared at me, and I stared back, trying to process my situation, where I had been, what had happened. It was then that I felt it. I had a heartbeat pounding in my chest and I could feel blood pumping around my body. There was insatiable human hunger concentrated in my stomach. I took her hand and placed it on my chest. She recoiled, shocked, unable to find words. But I could. Just one. "Buffy," I breathed. 

She's what drove me to come to Sunnydale. Buffy. I'm pulling up in front of her house now with my car's top open and sunlight pouring in. It's been so long since I've seen her. I practically skip up the steps to the door and bang on it frantically. I'm holding a bunch of tulips in my hand and my Claddagh ring is firmly on my finger. Slowly the door opens, and she stands there, just staring at me and the sunlight behind me. Forget the 240 years that have passed, my life has just begun. 


End file.
